PSX2 Goes DVD in 2000

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Sony's plans reveal a DVD set-top box more powerful than a Pentium III for games, movies, and music.

By IGN Staff

Sony's still-secret set-top box is "officially" under wraps, but a Japanese newspaper today revealed the most crucial aspects of the computer giant's plans. The new console's storage medium, launch date, and numerous other vital details about the PlayStation's sequel were made public today.

The medium is DVD (digital video disc)

The unit will launch in Japan at earliest by March 2000, probably by December 1999, with a September 2000 launch in the US

The machine will play movies and music that use the DVD format

The machine is most likely to be called PlayStation 2

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported early Monday morning that the new PlayStation ¿ which confirms many of the most recent fervent rumors and all of our sources ¿ will produce movie-like cinematics comparable to the image quality seen in Pixar's Toy Story, and that it integrates the use of music, movie, and game media on one console.

The PlayStation 2's new microprocessor will enable games to render nearly 50 times more 3D image data than Dreamcast, a serious leap over Sega's much-vaunted console, which processes 3 million polygons with all effects in use. In fact, the PlayStation 2 chip is to have data-processing speed several times faster than that of Intel's Pentium III, the report stated.

But the real catch is that development costs for the new 128-bit microprocessor ¿ which integrates image processing, memory, and other functions onto a single chip. The total costs of specially designing this chip have reached nearly 10 billion yen (84 million dollars). Add to that the cost of mass-producing a multi-format DVD console, and you've just invited a world of potential problems ¿ specifically high financial costs ¿ to your new console. Although the PlayStation 2 will have data-processing capability several times more than that of a PC, the retail price will be kept below 100,000 yen * (see below), company officials said.

What does that mean to you and us? For Japanese gamers, that may very mean a high-cost console, albeit the most powerful commercial console to ever reach a living room. A total of 100,000 yen coverts to approximately $840 by today's rate (about 119 yen to the US dollar). The last company that tried to deliver a multi-format set-top box at the price was 3DO, which no longer produces any hardware products. (Get the picture?)

Still, to put things in perspective, not only was there no official response from Sony Japan (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.), but Sony America (Sony Computer Entertainment America) did not phone us back by deadline either. It's highly unlikely that the keen marketing executives at Sony will launch the PlayStation 2 at such a price.

* Later on Monday afternoon, IGNPSX received news that "100,000 yen" figure may in fact be a mistranslation, and that the PSX would appear at the equivalent price of around $250-$400 in Japan, which sounds far more reasonable.

Check back tomorrow when we reveal Sony's full machine, and more critical details.!